Harper, the Conservatives and the constitutional question

Given his other writings, there is little surprise in Liam O'Brien's post about Stephen Harper's speech on handing more cash and power to Quebec.

Rather than actually reading Stephen Harper's comments, O'Brien resorts to holding up yet another of his convenient straw men, the "centralizing Liberal." He then tosses in a link to a piece by Gordon Gibson that speaks of changes in the Canadian federal system that are coming about or that need to come about.

These are two completely different arguments and it is hard to see how O'Brien glues the two of them together.

On the one hand, we have Stephen Harper who trots out a series of hoary old myths about Quebec and the 1982 constitution and appears to promise Quebeckers a full recognition of their distinct society in a fashion the Brian Mulroney tried during the entire Meech Lake mess.

On the other hand, we have Gibson. In a November 2004 article for the Institute for Research in Public Policy, Gibson argues that "most importantly, in Paul Martin we appear to have a new prime minister who is prepared to take the more conciliatory (and successful) approach of Lester Pearson, rather than the confrontational Trudeau/Chretien path." We can forgive Gibson for ignoring the different historical context of those two periods, but note that as Gibson writes, the Canadian federation is indeed profound, unstoppable and a joy to behold.

What Gibson is talking about, though, is decidedly different than what O'Brien and, apparently, Harper have in mind. O'Brien in particular holds to a view that there are only two sides to this debate. On the one hand are the vile ones, those who supposedly argue for turning Canada into a unitary state in which all power rests in the federal government.

On the side of Liam's Angels are those who would see provincial governments become independent or nearly so.

The flaw in O'Brien's construction is revealed by the rhetorical question he poses: "What's wrong with recognizing provincial autonomy?" Under the Canadian constitution, the provinces are sovereign - they are autonomous - in matters of a local and private nature. These are laid out in Section 92 of the 1982 Constitution Act.

By the same token there are other areas, outlined in Section 91, that are exclusively federal jurisdiction. There are others that overlap, and where, oftentimes there are differences of opinion between the two orders of government.

O'Brien's argument sees the entire matter of federal-provincial relations as being about transferring more of the Section 91 powers to provinces, as in the Harper/Mulroney approach. He ignores completely any discussion of any other rearrangements of federal provincial relations.

And in that, we reach the root of his point and find it rotten.

Harper and O'Brien only allow that Canadian politics is about 11 or so actors, namely the federal government and the various provincial and territorial ones. Ultimately, however, constitutional debates are about how the 30 million Canadians from coast to coast wish to be governed and, more importantly, how they wish to apportion responsibilities between two orders of government established in the Constitution Act.

As individuals and as a nation, we are shaped by what has occurred before. It is simply ludicrous to reject a criticism of Harper resurrecting Meech Lake simply because Meech Lake happened while some writers were still in grade school. Were he to take some time to read some history of these matters, O'Brien would discover that the same issues have been discussed, argued over and at times resolved many times in the past half-century and more. Perhaps he has; it just isn't evident in his arguments.

Were he to take some time and delve into some older writings, O'Brien would see that his characterization of the constitutional problem and some of the key actors is based on something other than fact or the words of those he would demonize.

For example, in a 1965 essay entitled "Quebec and the constitutional problem", Pierre Trudeau wrote:

"I do not consider a states political structures or constitutional forms to have absolute or eternal value....History teaches that diversity rather than uniformity is the general rule in this land....Even though our country is young, it has a history, and has lived through some profound experiences that have left their mark upon it, and which it would be vain and childish to ignore."

or later in the same essay:

"To my mind, neither Canada's present constitution nor the country itself represents an eternal, unchangeable reality. For the last hundred years, however, this country and this constitution have allowed men to live in a state of freedom and prosperity which, though perhaps imperfect, has nevertheless rarely been matched in the world...."

Pierre Trudeau, "Quebec and the constitutional problem",
in Federalism and the French Canadians, Toronto: MacMillan, 1968. p. 6.

So much for the idea that Trudeau and, some time later, Liberals advocate(d) a unitary state.

In fact, Gordon Gibson, who was an aide to then-prime minister Trudeau, is following much the same approach of his own boss in Gibson's comments on federalism under Paul Martin. The Canadian federation is evolving. Far better for us to adjust the relationship between the federal government and the provinces in some fashion than to ignore it or worse, tinker with it based on some simplistic notions.

Were we to go to the full extent of this constitutional evolution, we might consider giving municipalities some constitutional recognition rather than leave them as creatures of the provincial governments. We might consider in the course of our constitutional reform discussions that given the size of the country and the disparities among areas of provinces - Newfoundland versus Labrador, for example - we, as Canadians, and we, as Newfoundlanders or Labradorians, might be better served to create more provinces rather than fewer ones.

In the matter of fisheries, for example, we might consider doing something profoundly different rather than just shifting more power over fisheries issues to a bunch of provincial politicians and bureaucrats who themselves have proven no more wise in their actions than the federal ones O'Brien routinely accuses of perfidy and worse.

This an area into which O'Brien, and presumably Harper do not wish to go. It does not fit their world in which the constitution of our country involves only the dozen or so first ministers and the world is a better place when a Brian Tobin or Tom Rideout can head off to meetings at the United Nations.

The extent to which Harper's constitutional musings appear as mere vote-buying can be seen perhaps even more clearly in his proposal to elect senators than in his old Mulroney paraphrases. Harper simply wants to keep them as they are but let the provincial premiers decide whether or not to elect them and how they should be chosen.

By stark contrast, Harper's old party, the Reform Party, adopted a modest proposal to create in Ottawa a senate that was elected, equal in representation from all parts of the country and effective in its powers. This is the only sensible way to correct the political imbalance within the federal government since it recognizes that individual Canadians are ultimately those to be represented, not the 10 premiers. It recognizes that the response to regional frustrations is to balance the political powers within the federal government, as opposed to handing out more cash and power to provincial premiers.

Rather than recognizing that all provinces are equal in and of themselves as provinces, Harper's reforms would actually entrench the same political imbalance that sees the more populous areas of the country dominate the federal government. Rather than tackling the frustrations of Albertans and Manitobans and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, Harper's cheap fix of electing senators on the existing basis merely gives Ontarians and Quebeckers and British Columbians a disproportionately larger number of elected representatives - and hence power - in Ottawa than they ought to have.

By the same token, Harper would condemn the frustrated to their current lot. Electing senators may be a simple thing, as Harper says, but simple is not always best or even good enough.

While it is sure to infuriate some, one cannot help but quote another section of Trudeau's essay from 40 years ago to find an elegant riposte to the constitutional dabblings of one national party leader during this election:

"And so I cannot help condemning as irresponsible those who wish our nation to invest undetermined amounts of money, time and energy in a constitutional adventure that they have been unable to define precisely but which would consist in more or less destroying Confederation to replace it with some vague form of sovereignty resulting in something like an independent Quebec, or associate states, or a "special status", or a Canadian common market, or a confederation of ten states, or some entirely different scheme that could be dreamt up on the spur of the moment..."

To paraphrase an earlier version of Stephen Harper than the one he is currently peddling, on constitutional matters, Canadians deserve infinitely better than what the Conservative leader has proposed.

[Liam O'Brien's lengthy addendum to his original post, at responsiblegovernmentleague.blogspot.com, adds nothing to the discussion. It's worth reading if only to see how difficult it is for Harper defenders to come to grips with the constitution and the challenges we face as a country.]

Son of a Meech

From the sounds of Stephen Harper's latest speech on national unity, the man who once wanted to build walls around Alberta is taking constitutional advice from Brian "Diceman" Mulroney when it comes to Quebec.

According to Canadian Press, Harper "pledged to recognize provincial autonomy 'as well as the special cultural and institutional responsibilities of the Quebec government.'"

That sounds an awful lot like the Meech Lake Accord.

The Globe headline says it all: "Harper promises more money, power to Quebec".

Keep talkin' Steve. The votes are migrating away from you as the spectre of Mulroney rises out of the lake. The problem you'll have is not in Quebec, Steve - those comments are going to cause you problems in the rest of Canada.

Meanwhile, in the Toronto-Danforth riding, Deborah Coyne is reportedly feeling an intense case of the heebie-jeebies at the prospect of tackling another Conservative over the constitution.

Read on in the CP story and you come across this:

"Making a real change means having an honest government that can help Quebec be more than just a powerless spectator in the House of Commons or totally absent from the cabinet table," he [Harper] said.

From a man with no seats in Quebec and precious little chance of gaining any, Harper sounds here like he has lost touch with reality. Quebec is already well-represented at the federal cabinet table and has been for Canada's entire history.

Of course, it could be that Harper is promising to stick Gilles and some of his separatist buddies in a Harper minority government.

Of course, that would like almost exactly like the last Conservative government in this country: a bunch of western-based Conservatives in every sense of that word, a few Progressive Conservatives and another bunch of separatists co-opted into the caucus with promises of getting what they wanted - an independent Quebec or something damned close to it.

What will Liam think?

Someone has a sense of humour.

Follow this link to pierretrudeau.ca and see where you wind up.

My guess is that Liam is about to tear up his membership card.

Personally, I think the whole Conservative campaign is designed to present them as Liberals, but hey this is going a bit too far.

[via daveberta]

Rent-an-opinion ?

Heard on radio call-in shows:

Brain-trust of the Roger Grimes administration, former leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador Party, advisor to the leader of the Progressive Conservative opposition and queen of the radio talk shows, Sue Kelland Dyer, spouting some inane political theory that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians need a Harper Conservative minority government.

According to Dyer, the Conservatives would have a majority of their seats outside Ontario, and therefore the province would have greater influence. She obviously failed Politics 101. The party striving for a majority government will put its political weight to win seats where it doesn't have them. Hence, in the Dyer world, more Conservative cash and influence would flow towards Ontario and Quebec not away from it.

Then again, it's not the first time that Sue said something that made no sense.

Her sudden re-appearance on the political scene was as inexplicable as her argument was bizarre. Until...

Seen on a Conservative campaign bus in Petty Harper Harbour:

Sue Kelland Dyer. Several people have reported this in conversation, all with the same basic information: Sue's sitting on the advance bus and doing everything possible to avoid the media, all of whom know her and her unusual take on the world.

If Sue is working with the Conservatives in any way, then she needs to disclose it.

Otherwise, her calls to open line shows have been misleading in more ways than one.

Arrow Air still flying

With all the media buzz about suspected private aircraft charters by the Central Intelligence Agency, it's interesting to see that Arrow Air is still operating.

In December 1985, an Arrow Air DC-8 carrying over 200 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division crashed on take-off from Gander, Newfoundland with the loss of all souls on board.

Arrow Air was also one of the contract carriers reportedly used during the Iran-Contra weapons deals of the 1980s.

These days the airline seems to be a typical commercial carrier handling contracts for the united States Department of Defence. It's all pretty much routine.

As this is being written (2000 hrs, Eastern time), an Arrow Air DC-8 has just departed Gander en route to Miami International. At least two different Arrow DC-8s have been flying lately, sometimes through Gander ultimately en route to Capodochino in Italy, Travis Air Force Base, or Norfolk .

Meanwhile, as people search the skies and aviation records for the planes they suspect are involved, the Company at Langley has likely already changed planes.

Dyspepsia 101

Over at the Sun chain, the Conservative party campaign chair in Atlantic Canada still gets his column to spew his unique views about unfulfilled political promises.

That tells you something about the Sun's views on fairness and balance in its editorial pages. For the record, a dyspeptic former Liberal cabinet minister doesn't balance off an active campaigner like Crosbie.

John Crosbie, the former federal overlord in Newfoundland and Labrador, seems to forget his 1979 federal budget. There was no promise of a gasoline excise tax in the 1979 campaign, but Crosbie walloped taxpayers with an 18 cent a gallon excise tax on it just the same.

Stephen Harper - the guy who appointed Crosbie to the campaign chair job - called that stupid.

According to Jeff Simpson's The discipline of power, Crosbie originally wanted a 30 cent a gallon hike in taxes.

Meanwhile, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians continue to deal with the folly of Joe Smallwood at Stephenville and the subsequent folly of his successor Conservative government with Crosbie as finance minister that nationalized the Upper Churchill project and the Stephenville linerboard mill.

Was that short term political gain for long-term taxpayer pain, John?

NDP minor uptick: SES CPAC polling

Heading into the Christmas lull in campaigning, the Liberals remain ahead of the Conservatives, according to SES/CPAC's nightly rolling polls, but the New Democrats have scored a minor increase in their support.

"“Early results indicate that NDP support is moving upward from its low of 12%. Likewise, Jack Layton'’s daily performance index score improved the most last night (+11) largely driven on positive numbers related to trust. CPAC-SES tracking has the Liberals at 38% nationally, followed by the Conservatives at 30%, the NDP at 15%, the BQ at 13% and the Green Party at 4%."” - Nik Nanos, President, SES Research.

Overall, though, the Liberals remain in front at 38% followed by the Conservatives at 30%, with 17% of respondents undecided.

More people are unsure of who would make the best prime minister than chose Stephen Harper, while Paul Martin continues to score substantially ahead of Harper on the SES leadership index.

Bourque = berk ?

There are more links to anti-Liberal columns and stories in the Sun chain from website meister Bourque, that one ponders if Bourque is French for berk.

The Harper "Lock up yer brain" Tour

A battalion in every town.

Cash for children.

Cash for jocks.

Cash for everyone.

And now, the completely inane idea that if the Americans don't knock off being so difficult on the softwood lumber thing, Stephen Harper will replace the United States as Canada's major trading partner.

Since this story is printed in the National Lampoon Post, it's hard to take seriously, but apparently Stevie will promise Canadians anything, no matter how insane it is, if he thinks it will buy their vote.

I like to call it the Stevie Harper "Lock up your brain" Tour.

It should come as no surprise that the United States is considering a fence along its northern border, as Canadian Press is reporting. The goal is to apparently keep our right-wing mad cows from infecting their right-wing cows.

Given Harper's campaign, you can see the point.

Harper: I'm with stupid!

(Left) Latest item from the Connie eboutique is inspired by Stephen Harper's recent comments on John Crosbie's 1979 budget. Like Crosbie and the two leading Harper candidates in Newfoundland and Labrador, the t-shirt is a throwback to the 1970s.

By the way, in case you didn't know, Harper said "You can be principled without being stupid." The Crosbie budget toppled the Clark government.

So far, no media outlet has sought out the dyspeptic former Mulroney strongman in the province to see how stupid he feels now.

My guess is Crosbie is feeling pretty dumb, having taken the job of Atlantic campaign chair for the Harper Conservatives just days before Harper kicked Crosbie in the crotch in front of champagne sipping reporters on Con-Air, the Harper campaign plane.

What Harper was talking about, apparently was the 18 cent per gallon excise tax on gasoline that Crosbie stuck in his budget to raise cash.

I guess Harper never read Jeffrey Simpson's Discipline of Power.

Crosbie originally wanted an excise tax that would have raised the price of gas 30 cents a gallon.

If 18 cents was stupid, I'd like to know what Harper would think of that.

Double DARTed defence statement

Defence policy is one of my areas of interest so Stephen Harper's statement in Trenton the other day drew my attention for several reasons.

Harper talked of wanting to double the size of the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) and the purchase of at least three large transport aircraft, likely American-built C-17s.

The official National Defence backgrounder on the DART gives some idea of the unit's composition. Note that on the deployment to Sri Lanka it too five chartered Antonov AN-124 lift aircraft to move the unit of 200 personnel and equipment to the theatre of operations.

Hmmm.

The AN-124 (left) is big aircraft. It carries a maximum payload of 330, 695 lbs in a cargo space that is 119 feet long, 20 feet wide and 14 feet high.



By contrast, the C-17 (right) has a maximum payload of 170, 900 lbs carried in a cargo compartment measuring about 85 feet long by 18 feet wide by 12 to 13 feet high.


Now, if it took five bigger aircraft to carry the existing DART to a mission, why would Stephen Harper speak of buying only three smaller aircraft to fly twice as many soldiers and equipment?
Just a rough guess is that it would take 12-18 C-17s to carry the DART without resorting to multiple long-range sorties. Each C-17 costs upwards of $300 million per aircraft to buy, not including the annual operating costs and the price for spares and additional support.

That looks like about $3.6 billion just to buy the aircraft, or more than double the amount Stephen Harper pledged for three new aircraft plus an infantry battalion, plus whatever else he lumped in there.

There's something else about the Trenton announcement that doesn't ring true.

Roll of the dice, part deux

Those who recall Meech Lake will remember Brian Mulroney's interview before the final votes in which he boasted of the scheme he had implemented to put the provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, and Manitoba in a hard spot.

It infuriated the public for its sheer arrogance.

Today's Toronto Star contains a similar episode from Stephen Harper. It comes in the same context: a federal Conservative leader, relaxed with news reporters and speaking freely in the context of his self-confidence.

Among the people indirectly slagged by Harper is our very own dyspeptic former federal gauleiter, John Crosbie. Speaking about the Crosbie budget that precipitated the fall of the Clark government in 1979, Harper said: "You can be principled without being stupid."

As much as I might disagree with Mr. Crosbie on a range of issues, stupid sure isn't one of the words I'd ever use to describe him

Scott Reid: your gaffe has been supplanted by one of infinitely greater implications.

Harper: There are more votes in Trenton, than Labrador

Stephen Harper unveiled his party's defence policy the other day at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

On the beautiful Bay of Quinte.

in Ontario.

Mr. Harper's policy is to do everything the Liberals are planning to do with a couple of exceptions.

Mr. Harper will double the size of the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART). This is really a bit of nonsense. The DART can be tailored to meet the emergency need; it's inherently a flexible concept. A group of soldiers is tasked to provide the main resources. If more are needed, the core group could be doubled or tripled in size from existing resources with the Canadian Forces.

Mr. Harper also plans to purchase three C-17 type strategic lift aircraft. He plans to do this even though they aren't really needed by Canada, are expensive to operate and, given the small number he plans to buy, really wouldn't do much more than Canada can already accomplish now at lower cost. Back in January, Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier said he was putting a stop to endless studies of aircraft that Canada couldn't afford.

Of course, these new planes will be based in Trenton, where the announcement was made.

He will continue with Liberal plans to buy new transport aircraft and new search and rescue aircraft. Some of these will be based in Trenton, of course.

Mr. Harper will also continue with plans to create a special operations battalion affiliated with the JTF 2 special forces battalion currently based at Dwyer Hill.

This is where the whole announcement appears to turn into a movable pork-fest.

Last summer, when there was a by-election in Labrador, Mr. Harper's defence spokesperson Gordon O'Connor promised the battalion would be headed for Goose Bay under a Conservative government.

He was pretty clear about it too back in May 2005, when he talked about creating a new rapid reaction battalion and basing it in Goose Bay.

The newly re-christened battalion of 650 soldiers were always likely to have gone somewhere in Ontario - Trenton happens to be where the Canadian Forces Parachuting Centre is and where the aircraft are located.

But that's not what Gordo said at the time.

Make no mistake about it:

The C-17s are pure political pork aimed at voters in the Trenton area.

Make no mistake:

The double DART is a hollow promise.

Make no mistake about it:

Labrador's battalion has been renamed and shuffled off to serve as electoral cannon fodder in the vote-wars around Trenton.

The question is: were Gordo and Stephen bullshitting the people of Labrador back in June?

My guess is yes. There are likely more Conservative votes in Trenton than there are in Labrador, where the Conservatives have yet to find anyone willing to challenge incumbent Todd Russell.

Oh yes, for anyone who thinks the Conservatives will create two battalions - just note this story from the Globe and Mail. It ran just a handful of days before Harper's announcement. Even in the most optimistic projections, Canadian Forces recruiting this year will fall over 900 people short of target. For those who want to do the calculation, that's the better part of two infantry battalions of people.

The Canadian Forces is running way behind in its recruiting targets, primarily having problems in finding recruits for infantry units like the one promised to Trenton.

or was it Goose Bay?

What election is this again?

Oh right.

It's the Stephen Harper "Promise 'em Anything" Tour.

The Ceeb's skewed sense of electoral balance

While I render a hearty Attaboy to Liam over at RGL for making to the CBC blogger panel, I do have a question about its composition.

There are five panelists.

There are five major parties running federally: Liberal, Conservative, New Democrat, Bloc and Green.

Why then do the bloggers on the panel consist of:

Two Conservatives
One Liberal/Progressive
One New Democrat
One unaffiliated

???

Mr. Harper's attitudes

Courtesy of the Globe and Mail, this reminder of Conservative leader Stephen harper's real attitudes toward social programs.

Change the name, goal's the same

The raw materials sharing system for crab was attempting to deal with the oversupply of processing capacity (too many plants) and a relatively limited supply of crab by forcing the crab industry to share the crab around under a system of fixed prices.

Spread the resource as thinly as possible so everyone gets a piece of it, no matter how small.

After an admittedly quick read-through it seems to me that the Richard Cashin method of dealing with the same problem is to smear the limited supply of crab around to as many processors as possible so everyone gets some, even if it is just a little bit. There's a complex system to set prices.

He calls it "production limitation".

The name is changed.

The goal is still the same:

Pass the political buck to a future generation.

So much for a New Approach.

A candidate, a candidate...

For a gang eager to bring on the election both the Conservatives and the New Democrats seem to be having an extraordinarily hard time of finding people to stand for election carrying the party colours.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Dippers have three candidates out of seven nominated and no one is even showing the slightest hint of interest in carrying the Orange banner into another giant bonfire of failure at the end.

Making it doubly hard this time: Jack Layton's comments that people shouldn't vote for third place candidates in order to stop the Harperites from taking a seat.

Over in the Land of Con, the Blue Machine is missing a few candidates as well. They managed to browbeat, cajole and otherwise sucker Fabe Manning into taking on the task in Avalon. Some guy turned up today on the province's west coast willing to back Stephen Harper against Gerry Byrne. (My money is on Byrne, by quite a bit.)

The other seats are all blank spots for the Conservatives.

Meanwhile in St. John's both their candidates are the incumbents, provincial Conservative retreads who first campaigned in the 1970s and who first got elected to the provincial legislature in the mid 1980s.

So far, there's no repeat of last time though.

The Connies were so desperate to find someone to run against John Efford that the ever dyspeptic John Crosbie threatened to take a run at the nomination. The guy who should have run there - Loyola Hearn lives in Renews, in the southern Avalon - decided he wanted a safe seat and decided to run in St. John's.

Word is that Crosbie's wife Jane put a stop to the old boy's musing.

Would that she had done that in 1975.

Choice my foot - updated

What do Scott Reid, the prime minister's communications director and Liam O'Brien, the Conservatives chief blogger in Newfoundland and Labrador, have in common?

They are both apparently single men with no dependent children, talking about child care.

As a result, both of them miss the point about the Conservative Party's plan to give parents of children under six years of age an annual taxable payment of $1,200 for each child.

For Reid, he made the mistake of saying that parents would have $25 a week to blow on beer and popcorn instead of providing affordable child care spaces.

For O'Brien, like the party he supports, he made the mistake of claiming that the Conservative plan offers parents a choice in child care.

Neither could be farther from the truth. Simple math would have started them both on the right road.

The Conservative plan would amount to less than $25 per week or less than $5 per day, before taxes. After taxes, it could amount to as little as $2.30 per day.

For the 84% of Canadian families in which both parents work, $2.30 works out to next to nothing at all. A typical daycare in Newfoundland and Labrador costs about $500 per month for one child. That means the Conservative Party is offering less than 10% of the daily cost of that modestly priced service.

To offer meaningful choice of the kind Conservatives are talking about, one parent would stay at home providing child care for the first five years of a child's life. For single parents, the Conservative approach would mean that the parent would need income support for that entire period. In short, that means that the Conservative Party would have to offer about $30, 000 annually over a five year period.

Instead of that $150, 000, the Conservatives are offering a mere $7200, less than 5% of the amount required.

Choice my foot.

If Reid had wanted to demolish the Conservative policy for the fraud it is, he would not have raised the moronic point that the money would be spent on beer and popcorn. Even if parents in Canada were so monumentally irresponsible - and we are not - one doubts whether they could find a bottle of beer and a bag of popcorn anywhere in Canada for less than $2.50.

Rather Reid should have simply pointed to the blatant nonsense of the Conservative rhetoric about choice in light of the paltry sums the Conservatives are offering. The facts would have spoken for themselves.

If the Conservatives genuinely believed their proposal has merit, then they would not be working so hard to raise irrelevant points. Choice is but one; a parent under their program would still be compelled to send his or her child to daycare.

This undermines the second argument, one O'Brien loves, namely that the Liberal proposal is to create a "nanny-state" in which government replaces parents as caregivers. As O'Brien puts it: "stop advocating the Liberal government-daycare-one-size-fits-all monolith child care policy, opt for the fund-parents and allow-for-choice policy in child care!"

The very fact that people like O'Brien must conjure such fictitious boogie men reveals the weakness of their position.

As if that were not enough, O'Brien has now taken to challenging Liberals to fund a better choice program. He clearly does not wish to take responsibility for the failings of his own argument. Instead, he tries to fob it off on someone else. To paraphrase O'Brien, Conservatives are so sincere about choice in childcare that someone else should offer more cash to pay for it.

As single men with no children that I know of, both Reid and O'Brien are incredible commentators to start with. However it is the slipperiness of the argument, the blatant insincerity that destroys what shreds of credibility O'Brien and Conservatives could muster outside their own narrow circles. Reid's comments, as asinine as they were, simply cannot compare.

The Liberal Party solution, already in place, is to provide more child care places and early childhood learning for the majority of Canadian families who find that, in this day and age, both parents must work in order to provide an appropriate standard of living.

Given a choice, we parents might prefer to have one partner stay at home; that simply isn't an option for most of us these days. If we cannot find the support of our parents, as some of us were fortunate enough to do, we want reliable, accredited day care spaces where our children can learn and be nurtured. That is the essence of the Liberal and New Democrat child care proposals.

The current situation is not sufficient, but it is a start. As Canadians we should look at other tax and income support initiatives which firstly do not penalize couples for having children and secondly, offer genuinely nurturing experiences for children outside the home.

What we should reject are the sort of shams offered by the Conservatives under the guise of choice. Theirs are little more than meaningless words delivered, ultimately, with all the sincerity that can be mustered by the paid actors of their television commercials.

For what it is worth, Scott Reid should bear a little extra shame for his comments. He has succeeded in taking attention away from the Conservatives choice fraud. Given his apology, though, in due course, Canadians will be able to get past the howls of scorn from the Conservatives.

Their noise is merely a temporary diversion.

The shallowness of their position will soon again become plain.

[Update - Liam O'Brien's attack on this post is, predictably, longwinded. It also ignores the points made. As a friend of mine said when comparing the child care plans, anyone who thinks 12 hundred bucks offers choice in child care anywhere in this country has obviously never had children or had to pay for child care.

Liam apparently finds it a personal attack that I noted he is a single man with no dependent children commenting on child care. It would only be attack if it were untrue. As it is true - apparently - it merely constitutes pointing out a painfully obvious fact.

At the same time, a loyal e-mail correspondent advises that Mr. Reid, in fact, does have children. This is something I did not know when I wrote the post. His beer and pizza crack therefore is all the more baffling since he knows the 12 hundred bucks works out to half a tank of gas (at current prices) per week for a typical compact car like the one I drive.

The reality of the Conservatives' plan condemns it as the fraud it is.]

Harper changing stand on equal marriage?

Not likely.

The Globe and Mail is reporting this morning that the federal Conservative Party is attempting to distance itself from efforts by conservative Christian political activists who oppose equal marriage.

Conservative aides attempted to move the Harper campaign bus ahead of schedule as news media traveling with the Conservative leader attempted to interview David Mainse and Charles McVety.

As the Globe reports, "On Saturday, Charles McVety, the Canada Christian College head who also led the Defend Marriage organization against same-sex marriage, turned up at Mr. Harper's Mississauga rally, and was ushered into an office afterward to meet the party leader. But Tory campaign aides again pushed reporters to leave before Mr. McVety had departed."

Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory told reporters that Ontarians do not wish to re-open the equal marriage debate, settled earlier this year. Harper's first major policy statement was a call to hold a free-vote in the House of Commons on equal marriage. The Conservative Party policy manual contains that commitment plus the commitment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Meanwhile a local Conservative Party supporter is attempting to deflect attention away from Conservative party policy and its association with the religious right. Liam O'Brien points to the number of Newfoundland and Labrador members of parliament who voted against equal marriage as a defense of the Conservative Party policy.

O'Brien made no mention of comments by the Ontario Progressive Conservative leader or the number of Conservative Party candidates affiliated with the religious right. The Conservative candidate in Ajax-Pickering is a a vice-president of one of McVety's organizations. Other Conservative candidates attended a convention last week to organize the religious right as a political movement.

Abitibi Stephenville to close?

Talks between Abitibi Consolidated and its workers at Stephenville have broken off, with likely little chance of resumption before the first severance cheques are cut this week.

The issue which once dominated news in the province virtually slipped off the news room monitors in recent weeks.

CBC news is reporting the story somewhat differently, noting that efforts to re-start talks are expected this morning.

Earlier this year, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador agreed to subsidize Abitibi operations at Stephenville in an amount beyond what the province collects in taxes from the mill operations.